Farming the Apartment

Greetings From Suburbia

Well, that’s it. We’re no longer Chicagoans. We are full-fledged suburbanites. The traffic and having to drive everywhere is going to take some getting used to. There’s no such thing as a quick jaunt to the corner store to fulfill my soy icecream craving, or ordering take out from our favorite reliable standards.

I’ve got to figure out who sells the soy icecream we like, and we’ve got to explore the new restaurant scene. According to Grub Hub, there’s a decent Thai place nearby that delivers to us, and I saw a Sweet Baby Ray’s for barbecue while we were out and about driving the other day that isn’t too far away. Happily, there’s a Woodman’s within a reasonable driving distance so we’re set for stock up shopping grocery trips.

Finding a good farmer’s market is a pretty big priority too. The one in our town is closed this year for parking lot renovations, so we’re kind of stuck. The most promising one sounds like it’s over in Park Ridge, which is about a 20 minute drive. That’s a lot different than a five minute walk! But we’ll see about heading over there tomorrow so we can check it out.

We do have a few parks within walking distance, and the library and park district pool and gym are both long walks or short drives away. And it’s quiet here. We’re on a purely residential street, in a purely residential neighborhood – there is rarely sound here. You can hear birds. And silence. Sometimes you can hear kids playing outside – and they can play ball or ride their bikes in the street! We have next to no car traffic, so that’s not a completely unreasonable thing to do. Refreshing for a newly-former city girl to see.

We’re fairly well unpacked and settled. There are finishing touches that we need to do – the computer cords and wireless setup for the internet is a mess, so I’ve got to get one of those cord-keeper basket things to corral that disaster. And we still need to hang some coat hooks and little things like that.

And hopefully this weekend I will get a mother lode of tomatoes so I can do some canning. And I’m hoping I can still get some corn and fruit for the freezer – just prior to the move disaster struck and our chest freezer became accidentally unplugged. So all the corn and fruit I’d put up this summer, as well as my duck and turkey stocks were lost. On the plus side, the freezer was easier to move… so there’s no great loss without some small gain.

That’s life at the moment. It’s been busy, to say the least. We harvested the last of the tomatoes, peppers and kale before we moved, but we’ve still got chard and lots of herbs growing. I’m debating with myself on doing a fall garden – do I have the energy to plant fall crops like more kale, green onions and things? Or am I ready to put the garden to bed once the current stuff stops producing? I might let it go until next year. I do have quite a few sewing projects on the agenda that I could easily dive into, not to mention the Christmas crafting that I need to kick into high gear… so many choices!